On Your Marks: Get Set, Bake!
by IceDynamiteDragonflyStars
Summary: British cooking: bland, stodgy, either over—or undercooked. Yet every autumn, this is changed by one legendary cooking show. The Great British Bakeoff: a showcase of the nation's best, most creative, most skilled. An icon among English television shows. A national treasure. Now, if Arthur could only persuade his boyfriend to watch the thing...


**First off, I wanna say: we hit 69.69% of the way through 2017 today. Celebrate it wisely.**

 **Inspired by me having spent the last hour and a quarter screeching at the television because** ** _Kate ohmygod you didn't press your bread in. It will FALL._**

 **If you haven't heard of the Great British Bakeoff, please crawl from beneath the rock you live under.**

 **Also, biscuit week was _last_ Tuesday (today was bread) but biscuits feel so much more British.**

* * *

 _9:00 am_

"I am not watching a _British_ baking show! It will be only overboiled food and stodgy flavours! I would rather _chain myself to a telegraph pole in this weather! The day I watch it is they day I am six feet underground!"_

"It is British _culture,_ Francis! You cannot be in this relationship and not watch the _Great British Bakeoff!_ It is bread week! _Bread week, Bonnefoi!_ You like bread!"

"And what? Watch people make Tesco sliced loaves? The day I watch some middle-aged women cook with the four ingredients in the so-called British 'cuisine' is the day I am six feet underground and that is final!"

And Francis stormed out of the house to work, leaving Arthur fuming in the kitchen.

 _7:30 pm_

Arthur ate his pasta with all the warmth of a Siberian winter, glaring at his boyfriend across the table. The Bakeoff was... Sacred.

As was British nature, self-depreciating jokes were slung about on an hourly basis. That was the British: complaining about everything from weather to Karen From Work to, yes, the cuisine. (Never in front of Francis. Arthur would defend stew and black pudding until his dying breath when he was brought into the equation). But for those glorious few weeks in the beginning of autumn, when the evenings were dark and it was just right to curl up on the sofa with a Digestive and an Earl Grey, all cooking debates were out the window. The most talented in the country, from every possible ethnicity, age, background, area, would congregate in the Bakeoff tent and bake their hearts out. Every week, one would be named Star Baker, and one would leave the tent forever, until finally one would remain.

And goddamn it, if it wasn't the most emotionally gripping part of Arthur's year.

Arthur furrowed his impressive brows. "And you _certainly_ won't watch it?"

Francis looked back, equally stonily. "British desserts will never impress me."

 _8:00 pm_

This was it. The hour of the Bakeoff was upon the household. Arthur flopped down in front of the TV, biscuits for stress-eating and cup of tea in hand. He was ready to possibly literally cry.

Biscuit week. The judges would accept only the finest, the crispiest, the sweetest, the best cooked, the most magnificent flavours. There would be no mercy.

It was a quarter of the way through the first challenge that Francs happened to idly wander in, pulling the curtains in the flat. Offhandedly, he glanced at a baker explain her plans for a set of biscuits inspired by her wife's favourite food.

He didn't glance away. In fact, he watched as the other bakers explained their plans for shapes, flavours, baking time, their inspirations for all.

Arthur screamed when the ad break came. " _Fucking ITV! BBC would not have hurt me like this!"_ Of course. Francis was at least familiar with the country's channels—he had time to kill. ITV advertised, and there had been massive fussing sometime in 2016 when the Bakeoff announced a switch from the BBC. If only because Arthur had spent a week ranting.

Arthur wandered off to check emails for the five minutes until the judges began their criticism, and Francis slid into the armchair beside the sofa and hoped he wouldn't be noticed for pride's sake.

 _8:30 pm_

"Francis?" The last advert was wrapping up as Arthur wandered in—he must have timed it.

The Frenchman jumped out of his skin. "Oh, Arthur! I was simply resting."

Arthur shrugged. "Just keep your mouth _shut_ during the technical."

The technical turned out to be another type of challenge—the bakers were given ingredients and the vaguest possible instructions for some obscure bake, and the person with the best guesswork was awarded best.

Today it was fortune cookies. Francis wasn't sure when he started chewing at his nails, but he suspected it was when—" _Oh, sacrebleu, she is folding them wrong! Paul will not stand for this!"_ Francis clapped a hand over his mouth, dumbstruck. This was _British cookery._ He shouldn't be _invested._ But... The folds! They were not _dumplings,_ they were very specifically shaped!

Watching the critique was fun. Francis found himself nodding along—reasonably: that batch _didn't_ have enough snap when it was broken.

Arthur snickered, and Francis moved over to the couch just to kick him in the shins. And _no,_ it was not to get a better view of the screen. That would be dumb and not particularly French. Arthur kicked him back, and it went on for a few minutes, and then the adverts stopped again and they both found themselves sitting up much straighter.

The final challenge was hurriedly explained by Arthur—the bakers would have to make something out of biscuits. Today's theme was board games, but the grand theme changed over the weeks.

Francis almost shredded his lips with the amount of biting he was doing—as a dessert chef, he perfectly understood having to do something so grand with so little time. And as much as he despised admitting it, the flavours looked fit for kings—spices of all kinds, matcha tea, and shapes that could make a grown man weep.

He found himself screaming when one _snapped._ "No! Oh, god, she'll have to do it again!" He had grabbed the Digestives by this point—the show did bring out the stress-eating fiend in a man.

Arthur grabbed two biscuits as well. "It should be fine! She can ice it!" Although Francis couldn't help but notice the catch in his voice.

Finally, they were done.

And it was incredible.

Francis could only _pray_ to achieve this level of biscuit beauty. And this _random_ group of Brits was doing something beautiful.

He looked at Arthur, dark blue eyes popping. "They won't... They won't _eat_ them, will they?"

Arthur looked at him as though he'd grown another head. "But of course. They have to judge off flavour, right?"

Francis practically wept. (He might have actually wept a little) Those things belonged in an art museum, for god's sake. And here they were, being wantonly snapped away at by judges.

Francis bit his nails desperately throughout the judges discussion with the comedian hosts about who was exemplary and who was on the thinnest of ice.

He screamed along with Arthur when the ad break hit.

* * *

Arthur breathed in. The moment of truth. After their screaming and cursing at the abomination that was ITV was over, Francis had somehow managed to end up resting his head against Arthur's shoulder, and he was squeezing his hand like they were in a stereotypical movie childbirth scene.

A host stepped forward to announce Star Baker.

Arthur could feel Francis hold his breath, gripping his hand even tighter, then give a sigh of relief when the contestant's face crumpled, and every surrounding baker muttered at the very least a well meaning 'congratulations'.

"Well deserved, too." Arthur said, rapidly patting the back of Francis's hand. It would have been a slow clap, but Francis's finger were like a vice.

And finally, the death sentence. Who would leave?

Arthur's bloodflow was being completely cut off.

Francis groaned at the announcement, burying his face in Arthur's chest.

"There were slipups." Arthur said simply, petting Francis's hair. "It wasn't totally unpredictable."

Francis sighed heavily. "What a night."

"What a night indeed."

 _11:30_

It wasn't until they were both settled in bed that Arthur decided, _fuck it._ He bookmarked his copy of _Dracula_ and turned to Francis, who was doing some kind of texting.

"Well. The Bakeoff."

Francis looked at him defensively. "The Bakeoff?"

Arthur smirked. "Will you be joining me for bread week?" He switched off his reading lamp, wriggling under the duvet.

Francis yanked him closer. "The day I miss it is the day I am six feet underground."

* * *

 **An hour and ten minutes. Not half bad. If I could get this much of my original story done so quick, I would be a happy woman.**


End file.
